


despondency

by orphan_account



Category: The Owl House (Cartoon)
Genre: Enemies to Lovers, F/F, Mutual Pining, SUPER MESSY
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-17
Updated: 2020-09-17
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:07:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26505664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: "I hate you," Amity says, and her voice is sharp, plagued with an old wound. "I told you that.""I know," Willow gasps, teeth still chattering from the icy rain. "But you're stuck with me."~An experiment goes wrong, and Amity and Willow are alone. (Set in a universe where they never reconciled. Both are serving the Emperor's Coven.) Don't ship it? Give it a shot :P
Relationships: Amity Blight/Willow Park
Comments: 12
Kudos: 84





	despondency

**Author's Note:**

> messy little drabble. i kinda hate it but its ok

_[There's things I wanna say to you  
But I'll just let you live]_

It's not right.

It's not right that _she_ should be the one trapped in this alternate dimension. It's not right that, of all people, _she's_ the one jammed between worlds because of some terrible experiment gone wrong. Because it wasn't even her experiment in the first place, was it? It was some lunatic who drained Willow's plant magic too fast into the portal, and now she's-

It's not fair. It makes Willow want to rip the vine she's holding out of the ground, so she does, dirt and moss flying everywhere, and she doesn't even apologize for it.

Why should she, when this _stupid_ place won't give _anything_ back to her?

The sky is bright azure, and light dances across the forest canopy, but there's no sun. Just a gaping void of blue, staring down at her like it has any right to. It makes her want to scream, or cry, or tear down this stupid dimension. She seriously might, if they don't pull her out soon. She entertains the idea: ripping out branches, destroying wildlife. The thought makes her queasy now, though, and she lets go of the vine, lets it grate across her palm as it falls.

Except there's a groan to her left, and her stomach drops.

"Willow?"

She'd know that voice anywhere.

"Amity."

The gash she used to carry never really stopped bleeding, did it, she realizes, a sharp jolt going down her spine. The other girl is covered in yellow-orange leaves, on her hands and knees in the gritty mud, aquamarine hair askew, and she still looks like-

Like _that._ Willow swallows.

"Never thought I'd end up with _you_ ," Amity continues, and her voice is soft but tempered with the kind of malice that cuts her to the bone. Willow clenches her fist. Luckily, her magic doesn't work here, or she'd have lost control a long time ago. "I guess we're stuck together, huh?"

"Well," she says, and then clears her throat so her voice carries farther. It's dry from dehydration. She heard a stream earlier; maybe she can find some water there if they don't get out soon. "I didn't ask for this."

"You did, though, didn't you," the girl leans back onto her knees, deceptively calm, brushing leaves out of her hair with her hands. "It was your magic. I felt it. I-"

 _Recognized it_ , she doesn't say, but she doesn't need to. Willow hears it all the same, the indication that Amity still remembers. Still, whether she wants it or not, has a place in her heart where there used to be saltwater beaches and swingset meetups. It makes her uneasy, the thought that Amity still knows how her magic feels _._

She sinks to her knees in the dirt so she's across from her. Amity looks at her with her golden eyes, and they're just as cold as they always were, but there's something scared there, something vulnerable. Willow's shoulders slump, hands sinking into the soft dirt. "I missed you, Ami."

There's no clouds, and there never have been, but it starts to rain anyway. The ground at the foot of the hill will become even less manageable soon, already soft-packed earth turning into a full-on mudslide, rivulets of brown chasing down the slope. It's already starting, and they're both soaked, so Willow gets up and grabs her hand and drags her deeper and deeper, until the canopy grows so thick that the drops just barely squeeze through.

"I hate you," Amity says, and her voice is sharp, plagued with an old wound. "I told you that."

"I know," Willow gasps, teeth still chattering from the icy chill that's descended upon the world. "But you're stuck with me."

Amity shakes her head, and Willow realizes with a jolt that her hairtie's missing. Her hair hangs down around her shoulders, unfettered, like it hasn't done in years. _Beautiful,_ she thinks, and tamps the thought down as quickly as it comes. She's not allowed to think things like that. Not anymore. She tries again, "There's nothing alive here. It's just you and me."

The girl lifts her chin, staring up at the ceiling of leaves above them. There's no noise here, either, except the rain pattering down onto the foliage. None of the hustle and bustle of the Boiling Isles, just pure, rhythmic downpour. It would have been a little more beautiful if she didn't have to spend it with her childhood crush-turned-enemy, didn't have to deal with that ancient ache. "You can't avoid talking to me forever, you know. We have to figure something out."

Except Amity's still sitting there like a petulant child, staring at a hidden sky, so Willow turns to leave the clearing. If _she_ won't help her, then she's going to find another way out of this place, this Despondency. With Amity, or without. She feels half-dead, dehydrated and starving, and so she steps forward, to follow the still-overarching sound of running water, to find _anything_ that will help her survive.

"Wait."

She whirls around, not willing to let herself hope, but just thirsty and hungry and tired enough to listen to what she has to say. Even if she doesn't say anything friendly. Even if she tells her to go, get out, never return again. Willow respects Amity's decisions; she always has and she always will, though the other girl never does the same anymore.

The word _anymore_ hurts. Amity sighs, pushes herself to her feet, and sets her jaw, something she's done ever since they were kids. Willow's already half-dead, but the familiarity of the gesture kills her a little more. "I don't like you."

"I know," and she bites her lip to stop from adding, _What else is new?_

"But we need to get back home," she heaves another breath, and her voice sounds raspy on the way out. Willow's worried, of course, even though she's not allowed to be anymore. "So _we_ are going to work together. And you aren't going to slack off like you used to."

Willow narrows her eyes, hopes it's enough to make her feel guilty (it's not. it never is). "I never slacked off. I was a late bloomer."

The rain stops, leaving a boundless silence in between. It's almost more uncomfortable, now, with nothing to mask the gaps in their conversation. Amity doesn't seem as fazed, but then again, she's a Blight.

(The word leaves a sour taste in her mouth now. She's pretty sure Amity feels the same.)

Amity steps forward. Thrusts her hand towards Willow and sticks her pinky out like they used to, and she almost wants to laugh at the absurdity of it, except she doesn't, because it feels inappropriate and because the ache in her chest wouldn't let her even if she wanted to. But she smiles, even if it makes her chapped lips hurt, and hooks her pinky through Amity's.

"We got here through a portal. It was supposed to go to the human world."

"Why would Belos want to go to the human world?"

"I don't know."

"Why would he ask _you_ to help make the portal? And why am _I_ here?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know anything."

"Neither do you," Willow counters. The rain stopped a long time ago, and they still haven't gotten anywhere. She's starting to doubt that they'll ever leave this place. The good thing is that they aren't dying of dehydration anymore - Amity managed to fold a leaf into a bowl, and they took turns sipping it from time to time. It wasn't very good, and the aftertaste is still there at the back of their throats, but it's enough.

"At least I," Amity coughs into her palm, leaning back against the tree trunk - it sounds raspy and painful. Willow tries to hand her the leaf, but she pushes it away, and some water sloshes over the edge. "At least I didn't cause all this. Belos is probably raging right now. I wonder if the palace is okay."

Willow smiles, and at least that feels natural. "My parents are probably worried sick."

Amity snorts. It's unlike her. "Mine aren't."

The sky is still the same shade of cloudless, unnerving blue. Amity looks up at it, surprise fleeting across her face, like she expected something to ever be different in this sunless reality.

"It's not going to change," says Willow, then dares to ask: "But we are, right?"

Amity laughs; it's watery. It sounds like the hill they appeared on, muddy with emotion. "What's the point?"

"We'll be friends again."

"I don't have friends."

"You did." _Before you pushed me away._

"That was before," Amity swallows, looks like she really doesn't want to keep talking. "Before my parents."

It washes over her, then. Maybe if she was less exhausted, it would have hit her harder, but her brain can't handle any more of this, so it's like this: The demon goes roar. The ghost goes Boo. It's not Amity Blight's fault that they're not friends anymore. She stumble-staggers to her feet, but her vision lists sharply, and she sways against a nearby tree. Amity tenses like she's about to get up, but decides against it at the last moment, relaxing (but not really) into the bark.

"We need to get some food into you," she groans, but her tone is more teasing than exasperated. "Before you die on me or something."

Willow puts her hand out. It wobbles with fatigue; Amity takes it.

_You hate her,_ Amity thinks, just to convince herself of the fact, because the words won't come out of her mouth anymore. _Youhateheryouhateheryouhate-_

The girl with round glasses crouches down near a ridiculously large plant. Its leaves are edged with little spikes, but there's berries growing on the stem, blue and red and black, glistening in the sourceless light. She pops one off the stem and eats it before Amity can even decide whether it's poisonous or not. Then again, this is Willow. She's always been good with the living, just like Amity's domain is the dead and obsolete, abomination goo and purple poison.

She steps away and gestures to it with one hand, using the other to hold another handful. The juice stains her palm, violet and red. "It's safe."

 _How can I trust you_ , she thinks, _with all this bad blood_ _._ But she takes a lavender one and pops it into her mouth anyway, and it's sour on her tongue but _so_ delicious.

"Damn, Park, I could kiss you right now," she says. It's meant to be casually joking, but the words haven't quite formed right, and she's never been very good at jokes. And Willow stiffens, tenses up, but says, quietly:

"No, not yet."

"Oh," says Amity. The silence grows uncomfortable after that, suffocating, so she continues: "It was- a joke." She stumbles halfway through the sentence; it's the opposite of convincing.

"Yeah," Willow agrees. "A joke."

They don't speak to each other for the next three days. As the months (days, weeks, whatever. When the sun never sets, time becomes complicated) pass by, it grows hotter and hotter - Amity's getting tired of the weather that only seems to swing from extreme to extreme, freezing cold rain one day and sweltering heat the next - and the illness doesn't get any better. Only worse, until it seems like she's never lived without the breath catching in her chest and coming out in wheezing coughs.

She wakes up one day and she can't breathe, drags herself over to the nearby stream to retch her guts out but there's nothing there but _purplebluered-_

Amity hates it here. So much.

But she's stuck here, in this infernal place, with nothing around her but sickly-yellow-orange foliage and a void of blue sky, fields of rolling green and Willow Park. Nothing's alive here. Nothing really _grows_ from the ground, still, and nothing's changed. Nothing at all, except themselves.

Absentmindedly, crouching over the riverbed, she swirls her finger into the air, willing an abomination to rise from the ground, not really expecting it to work except-

It _does_.

Willow comes up behind her and puts her hands over her mouth when she sees the tiny abomination. There's something glistening in her eyes; Amity thinks they might be tears, but only the cusp of them. She tells herself it doesn't matter; that they'll be back in the Boiling Isles and she'll be awful to Willow again as they pass each other in the corridors. Like a dream that never quite faded away.

But the thought of that sends her aching all over, because Willow somehow means so much _more_ to her now than just a half-dissolved dream in here. It's a weird thought to have: Amity doesn't even know her favorite color anymore, really, doesn't remember much anymore ever since she got to the Despondency. She can guess, though. She guesses it's a deep, viridian green, like her eyes.

Amity guesses wrong. Willow's favorite color is gold.

"Again."

"Like it'll work the third time."

"It will-"

"Isn't insanity just doing the same things over and over and expecting different results?"

"This isn't like that."

"Isn't it?"

"Why are you so difficult?" Willow bursts out, and maybe _she's_ the insane one here, trying to get through to Amity when the girl's never been anything more than vaguely tolerant of her. Maybe it's time to just give up and let enmity run its course. "All I've ever done is been kind to you!"

"I'm _sorry_ ," Amity says, low and desperate, and Willow's shocked when she reaches out to grasp her hands softly. "I'm sorry. Maybe I just don't know how to deal with you. Maybe I'm just - wrong."

"You are wrong," Willow reaches out and grabs her hands between hers. It feels strangely intimate, and she squeezes, sealing the moment in the memory. "You're wrong that you don't know how to deal with me. Because you do. You always have. Sometimes you just- choke up."

Amity is crying. She doesn't even realize it until she tastes the salt. She pulls her hands away from Willow's, thrusts her palms out and _focuses_.

It happens slowly but surely. Purple light, leeching from her hands, gradually but certainly forming into a glowing indigo rectangle, cutting through the stale air with a sense of buzzing power. The Despondency seems to come to life under its glow, and Amity finds herself regretting something she never did, never said.

"It won't last long," she warns Willow.

"Ladies first," the girl teases gently, because this is Willow: kind, smart, sweet to a fault. She's had an eternity and a half to process this; might have had another if she didn't want her happiness so badly. Because that is something Amity can't give her. Not the way she is right now.

She shakes her head, palms shaking under the duress of holding the portal. There's sweat running down her forehead. "I'm not coming, Willow."

Willow's face crumples so fast, she almost thinks she imagined the mischievous smile on her face a moment before. "What?"

"I won't make it through the portal, Willow," she wheezes. "You saw how sick I was, how sick I-" A violent breeze from the portal cuts her off, spurring her into coughs that wrack her whole body. "-how sick I _am_ right now! You have to GO!" she shouts over the howl of the sudden wind.

"No," Willow shakes her head. "Ami, I can't go. Not without you."

Amity nods frantically, and she's trembling, now, under the incredible strain. "Yes. You can. You always have."

It happens so quickly she almost doesn't realize it:

Willow blinks, as if realizing something. She steps forward in the last second and kisses her.

It's so much all at once that Amity almost lets the portal close, but instead she leans into it, lets Willow trade her a little magic in exchange for some of hers, and pulls away with aching lips. Willow waves as she steps into the portal, and the expression on her face is simultaneously the best and most soul-crushing thing she's ever seen in her whole entire life.

Amity can't wave back because she's literally holding up a portal with her magic, but she nods, imperceptibly, and hopes Willow notices.

The moment she steps through, Amity lets go, heaving on the ground as the strain finally takes its toll on her. It feels like the curse of Atlas, a thousand mountains bearing their weight on her muscles, but this is something she's good at - handling magic - not emotions or _feelings_ or anything like that. The pain in her joints is a hundred times better than the all-consuming ache she feels in her heart.

Willow still lingers on her lips, static on her cheeks.

She's stuck in the Despondency. Alone.

It's hard to tell how much time passes in here. One moment she thinks it's years, the next, days; sometimes she even thinks it's been hours since Willow stepped through that portal. Sometimes she wonders if Willow was even there, because the only proof she has that something happened are the burns on her hands from the portal; and those could easily be from when she got here.

It stops raining after Willow leaves, but the stream is still there, bubbling cheerfully through the woods. The berries keep growing red and lavender and blue. She wonders what's keeping them there, pulls the plant out by its roots to see if it grows back, and it does within hours.

She likes to think that Willow is still looking out for her.

She wakes up one day to the world bathed in purple neon. She has no idea what's going on, but as she sits up, a door opens between the trees and Willow Park steps out, just a little older but still _Willow._ Her posture's straighter, and her shoulders are thrown back like she's someone powerful, now.

Amity laughs weakly; her voice doesn't quite work after all this time, but she manages: "Hi."

Willow stops. Willow stares. "You realize I just tore a hole in space-time for you, right? And that's the only thing you can say?"

"I did the same for you."

"With some convincing, but yeah."

"I'm a long-term project," Amity says, but she feels lighter than a feather. "Does it have enough energy for the both of us?"

"Obviously," answers Willow, and she pulls the wrought-iron door back open. The light almost blinds her, this time; she doesn't know how she kept her eyes open the first time. She gestures to the portal. "Ladies first."

This time, Amity steps through.

It's not perfect, not by a long shot, but it's right.

_[Like if you hold me without hurting me_

_you'll be the first who ever did]_

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by the portal from spop s3 i'm not expecting this to get that much attention, considering how messy i left it and the fact that it's a bit of a rarepair, but if you did read it i hope you enjoy :)


End file.
